Gates' Generosity Sets New Standard

January 2, 2001

If you're the "world's richest man," what do you do with all that money? You spend some of it on yourself, buying a palatial high-tech mansion that a king might envy. But you also give away vast sums to worthy causes, earning yourself a deserved place atop the list of the world's most generous philanthropists.

If your name is Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, you give away so much money that you become the single most influential force on the planet trying to reverse the escalating health crisis among poor people.

That's an astonishingly powerful role to play. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates and his wife have outspent the entire U.S. government by nearly $300 million in their contributions to combat global health threats like AIDS, malaria, gastroenteritis and tuberculosis. They donated the mind-boggling sum of $1.44 billion to improve the world's health last year, compared to $1.16 billion by the U.S. government.

Their donations are equal to almost 29 percent of the $5 billion spent on underdeveloped countries by all the world's industrialized nations combined.

Critics will say Gates' wealth highlights the growing gap between the haves and have-nots of the world. That gap historically foments jealousy, hatred and even revolutions and wars, while denying basic necessities of life and a decent quality of life to those on the lower end of the scale.

But others, correctly, will point out how Gates has learned to use much of his wealth to help close that gap, especially when it comes to access to decent health care.

Gates bankrolled his foundation with a jaw-dropping $21.8 billion endowment, making it the world's richest philanthropic institution. Since 1997, it has donated more than $2 billion toward global health improvements.

Gates has come to symbolize a new breed of the rich, who measure themselves not just by how much they earn but also by how much they give away. Another example is Ted Turner, founder of Cable News Network, who offered to put up $34 million to bridge a shortfall in U.S. dues payments to the United Nations.

Gates is easy to dislike, because of his arrogance, his monopolistic control over parts of the computer industry and his hard-ball business tactics that earned an anti-trust lawsuit, a judge's harsh criticism and an order to break up his company.

But he is also worth admiring and respecting, because his extraordinary generosity is matched by a boundless enthusiasm to educate himself about world health problems and make grants to promising agencies that are tackling those problems.

Understand this: You don't need to be wealthy like Bill Gates to be a philanthropist. You can donate to your local United Way, a religious institution, school or university, or another nonprofit agency providing health and social services or other benefits to those in need. You can set up a donor-advised fund at your local community foundation. Or you can leave a legacy, donating some of your money in your estate to be shared with others after you die.

More and more Americans are donating something to charity every year, and those donations keep getting larger. But far too many people donate nothing at all, when they could afford to give something.